


Give and Take

by AshToSilver



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-06-13
Packaged: 2018-07-14 18:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7185590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows how it feels like to live in fear. He knows how it feels like to deal with the consequences of others’ hurting you. Gotham is his and he can smell the terror on the wind. They need someone to protect them and he’s willing to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give and Take

**Author's Note:**

> **Anonymous requested:** _Maybe batjokes where Bruce is a vampire?_
> 
> Still a part of my [June Prompt Challenge](http://alexfics.tumblr.com/post/145111053242/accepting-batjokes-prompts). Let me know if you have a request!

You can probably guess how this starts.

Bruce Wayne dies at the age of eight, in an alleyway with his fingers curled around his father’s coat sleeve and less than a litre of blood left in his body.

And depending upon who you ask, it is either a great misfortune or a magnificent gift that he’s awake again by the time anyone finds the bodies.

Alfred takes him home, because what else is there to do. Alfred asks questions, but neither of them have answers. But Bruce is now in possession of a lot of money and has a convenient excuse, so they get through the feeding and hyper senses and everything else that comes with… this.

He supposes there are legends, and he reads them, but part of him - most of him, doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to be trapped like this, a part of him even wants to be dead. It feels like it would be kinder.

When he’s fourteen, he goes off to find others of his kind, dodging the curious gaze of adults confused at a lone child, his body that has never grown. He finds Henry Ducard, who works for a government that doesn’t know how he disposes of his kill orders. He finds David Cain, who will lend his strength and speed for money.

He finds Ra’s ah Ghul, who says _train with me, run with me, hunt with me, and I will give you the body of a man_. And surprisingly, he does. Bruce can never describe what exactly the Lazarus Pit did to him, but he goes back to Gotham ten years later looking exactly as old as he should be. He knows he won’t age anymore, not the way he and Ra’s had parted ways, but it’s better than being stuck immortal in the body of a small, frightened boy.

Bruce doesn’t go back to Gotham to reenter society. His absence has been noted and most have begun to accept that he’s too traumatized, too inexperienced to join in on the rich kids’ fun. No, Bruce goes to hunt what got him. What got his parents.

He knows how it feels like to live in fear. He knows how it feels like to deal with the consequences of others’ hurting you. Gotham is _his_ and he can smell the terror on the wind. They need someone to protect them and he’s willing to do it.

After all, he’s immortal, trained and very, very smart. He’s probably got forever to do what he needs to do and _nothing_ is going to get in his way-

Except then there’s the clown.

Bruce has never really loved anyone, not beyond the familial love he has had for his parents and Alfred, and the possessive love he has for his territory, his Gotham. So the clown is… infuriating. Dangerous, sure, but human and mortal and _really fucking annoying_.

He can’t stop thinking about him. He’s strange and new and Bruce can smell his blood across half the city. Most people know the Batman is fast, unnaturally strong and has never lost a fight, never even flinched at a knife stab or a gunshot wound, so most of them don’t come back, once he’s done with them. But the Joker does. He taunts and pushes right at the boundary - the line that says _this is too far_. He loves when Bruce puts cracks in his bones and throws him into the harbour and gets so frustrated that he keeps getting back up.

Bruce had promised Alfred a lifetime ago that he wouldn’t kill, so he doesn’t. He puts the Joker in his time out and hunts the gangs instead, playing his game of chase that settles the ancient call deep inside his own bones. Then, eventually, the clown gets back out and they hunt each other, fight and start over. Bruce tries not to think about it too hard.

Then one evening Bruce goes to the circus following a lead and comes home cradling a small body, having witnesses a practice performance gone terribly wrong.

Bruce had promised Alfred a lifetime ago that he wouldn’t turn anyone. That he wouldn’t bring this cursed life down upon anyone else. But Richard John Grayson had a broken neck and bone in his lungs and had been bleeding out between his own parents, clutching their dead bodies even as he died and-

Bruce regrets asking. He’d been the only one to hear the _snap_ and _crack_ as the line broke and he’d leaned over Dick, smelt the death on him and asked _I can save you, but you’ll regret it for the rest of your life_.

He thinks if Joe Chill - not technically dead, but Ra’s taught him how to lock his kind up where none can get at or awake - had asked him the same thing, he would have said no. But Dick is bright and young and wants to live, so he says _help me_ and Bruce does. He bites and he turns and he takes Dick home, where he feeds him the donated blood that gets him through the first frenzy.

He trains Dick like he was trained and wonders what he’ll do, when that small body gets too small for a person who’ll never get a chance to grow. He tells Alfred _never again_ and can feel the lie. He thinks of Chill, and wonders if it would be better to burn him.

But perhaps, if he has to break a rule and break it again, he should only break the one.

He has no one to talk to about this, no others he can lean on. Dick is too young to be burdened more than he already is and Alfred does not _approve_ of the strange logic Bruce’s mind sometimes makes and so one night the Joker leaps out from one of his many hiding places and drives a knife right into Bruce’s ribs.

Usually he bothers to act wounded, but he hasn’t slept in fifteen years and he’s _tired_ , so instead he says in all honesty, “could you not?”

The Joker pauses, a little confused at this. Bruce still doesn’t know what the extent of his knowledge about the Batman even is. “Is this a bad time, darling?” He purrs, and punctuates it with a cackle. There’s a real question underneath it, but it could ignore it, if he wanted to.

Bruce pulls the knife out and hands it back, no blood or anything else for that matter on the blade. Sometimes he bleeds a little if he’s fed recently, but Dick has worked through most of his stores and he can’t afford to be more suspicious than he already is by buying more. Companies pay attention, after all. “Is there any way we can postpone this until next week?” The clown likes him, maybe he’ll be considerate.

The Joker frowns - something Bruce isn’t sure he’s ever seen him do. “Now that doesn’t sound good, want to talk about it babe? Get some things off your chest with ol’ Doc Kurr?”

Bruce has never spoken about how much being like this hurts and he probably never will. “I don’t think there is anything you can do to help me.”

But the Joker, in all his chaotic, neurotic ways, wants nothing more out of this life then Bruce’s undivided attention, so he says “Batsy, I’m serious, if you need something, I can get it to ya.”

Bruce can do many things. Sometimes - not always, but sometimes - he can sense things in people’s words. The truths, the lies, the emotions behind them. He can smell the intentions, hear what has happened and what will even when it’s never _spoken_.

So he hears what Joker doesn’t say. _Give me every bleeding awful thing inside of you, I’ll take it all, I’ll kill for you, love for you, break my own fingers for you, let me in, let me, let me in._ He suddenly knows what little the clown _won’t do_ to get the bat to pay attention.

And something- something snaps. He’s hungry and tired and angry and his teeth are buried in the Joker’s throat.

He’s never fed off a person - not a single living soul. He’s drank from the bags he buys and once or twice from the cups that Alfred has offered of his own blood. He’s drank from the dead, after his mentors were done from them, and dying animals, though it didn’t do much. But he’s never ever bit and drank from a living human being just to _feed_.

The Joker gurgles, nearly chokes trying to breath with Bruce pressed against his windpipe. He’s trapped under Bruce, pressed against the floor of the abandoned apartment building the bat had been lurking in. The clown has no way to break the hold if Bruce goes too far and part of him goes _yes, yes, my prey, my food, so close, so weak_. He’s still _there_ enough to be aware of how much he’s taking, but everything else is slipping away in a wash of happy, warm contentment.

He shifts, dragging the Joker’s head so he can nuzzle in closer, still swallowing down as much as he can through hollow fangs. He can feel the man squirm beneath him, wrapping his arms around Bruce’s neck, but not fighting back. He distantly notes the near-thrashing sensation as the clown kicks his legs and Bruce wonders how much this must hurt. He could be doing it wrong, for all he knows.

But then he notices the _way_ the Joker is moving - he’s keeping his neck still and none of his muscles are tensing, but his hips are moving against Bruce’s own waist, a rocking movement that very clearly manifests as a rutting motion as the Joker tries to get himself off against Bruce’s body.

Even the blood itself is changing, the taste altering at the flood of hormones. That, in addition to the sweet, sweet taste that’s falling down his throat, is enough to make Bruce’s eyes flutter shut, something that might be affection or possessiveness curling through his chest. He hears the Joker’s breathing get rougher and he sucks harder in return, moving his teeth enough that the pain makes the clown shout.

Then he’s coming with a screaming laugh, squeezing Bruce’s neck with his embrace and pressing closer then he needs to be. Bruce takes it as the signal that it was meant to be and let's go, swiping his tongue over the bleeding wound as he swallows the last of it.

The Joker lies there panting and Bruce can feel the pleasure rolling off him. For the clown, it was the perfect combination of pain and pleasure and dubiously moral that he loves.

“Better, darling?” The clown asks, pressing a shaking hand to Bruce’s cheek.

And for the first time in a long time - perhaps since he was eight years old and lying dead on concrete, Bruce is.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Under The Road](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7525546) by [AshToSilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshToSilver/pseuds/AshToSilver)




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